


And The World Turns To Ash

by TheCliffStudios



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:22:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCliffStudios/pseuds/TheCliffStudios
Summary: Being suspicious of the Ather foundation Ash investigates and finds a scheme that runs much deeper than he could have ever imagined.An AU fic heavily inspired by the best Pokemon fanfiction "Ashes of The Past" Expect some Aura training, a world to save, and a prophesy to fulfil.In this AU Alola was already a fully-fledged league with a champion and Elite four and the Ather foundation is closer to what we expected before gen 7 came out.





	1. Foes, New and Old.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ashes Of The Past](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/521204) by Saphroneth. 

Within the lowest floors of the Aether Foundation, there existed a large complex of secretive labs, the cold sterile white walls contrasting against the large dark cavern walls, all lit by flickering lights that let out a faint hum.

The young Master to be, Ash Ketchum crouched on a support beam, something about the Aether foundation had seemed suspicious to him, the way their leader Luscamine had talked about Pokemon had been strange, it greatly unsettled him. In all his years of travelling, he had learned that every region had its underbelly, and Team skull felt more like a distraction than any real threat. Ash had been watching one lab in particular for a while, the name on the door had caught his eye, Azoth. Something about that lab felt wrong, as though it was an affront to Arceus himself.

This lab currently had a lot of activity, scientists, grunts and researchers were hauling items out of the facility, bulky equipment, research notes and crates marked fragile, some of which rattled as a grunt lifted them onto his dolly. Ash heard an old, but familiar, high pitched voice. Turning, Ash saw someone he never thought he'd see again.

"Careful with that, this equipment is highly fragile." it was Charon, dressed in his old Galactic uniform and next to him, was that... Commander Mars, Ash definitely felt a sensation of dread, if they were going for the Sinnoh legends again, it could be disastrous.

"How's the progress coming?" spoke a new feminine voice, Lucamine elegantly strode into the corridor, commanding the attention of the Galactics.

"We're approaching completion, we should be able to depart soon." The old scientist replied.

"Excellent, I will be joining you in Sinnoh within the next few days, I trust you have everything you need?"

"Yes, we should do." Charon left shortly after this, leaving the last of the grunts to cart of the last few needed items.

Eventually, the facility was empty eerily quiet now, despite the faint hum from the lights and the occasional creaking of metal. Once Ash felt sure that they were all gone, he snuck out of his hiding spot and approached the suspicious lab. Naturally, the door was locked, but Ash wouldn't let that stop him. With a nod from his trusty partner, Pikachu leapt from his side and struck the door with a decisive Iron Tail attack which reverberated through the large chamber, shaking the place ever so subtly. Inside, the lab seemed strangely empty. A few stray papers were left laying on desks, and a stone sat on a pedestal. The rest of the room seemed deserted, for some reason, only adding to Ash's suspicions.

Most of the papers were meaningless scraps, filled with nonsensical mentions of "Infinity Energy" whatever that was supposed to mean, but one was interesting. it talks of how reality was built to balance itself, that certain systems exist to fix problems as they arrive, such as how the distortion world exists to fix issues within our world and that these forces are very strong and seem unavoidable.

Ash couldn't make much sense of this, but he does recognise the rock on the pedestal, he's not sure where from though until he reads the plack "Disturb not the harmony of fire, ice or lightning lest these titans wreak destruction upon the world in which they clash. Though the water's great guardian shall arise to quell the fighting. Alone its song will fail, thus the earth shall turn to ash..." Yeah, he'd heard that before but the name of the prophecy was new to him "The legend of Shamouti, Cinis Text" Ash didn't exactly like remembering that day, it was a painful memory, another time the world could have ended, Ash was disturbed by a voice originating behind him.

"Hey, what are you doing back there!" knowing that he was out of time, Ash turned.

"O-oh, hey there, I was jus-" Ash started to explain, then suddenly pointed towards the goon. "Pikachu, Thunderbolt!" Ash ran into the hall as the security guard flew back from the electric shock, knocking him onto the railing and rendering him unconscious. Another guard was soon chasing them and Pikachu's cheeks sparked with energy as he readied an attack. "No, don't worry about it just keep running!" he said, as Pikachu let the energy discharge and focused on running, Ash didn't want to risk getting swarmed by grunts in here. "No time for the lift," Ash commented, grabbing a Pokeball from his waist and throwing it ahead of them, as they reached the lift shaft and scoping up his partner. He leapt over the rails and onto the back of the materialising flying type. "Pidgeot, we need a quick exit," he explained, receiving an affirmative cry in response from the bird who flapped her wings, flying up the shaft and making a quick turn out of the shaft as they reached the harbour floor.

For once they actually made their escape relatively unscathed. Ash usually had a near-death experience while infiltrating evil lairs, the fact that he could identify a trend probably meant that he infiltrated too many evil lairs.

During the flight back Ash thought back on what he had seen in that lab. The notes those machines they were taking to Sinnoh, clearly, they were planning something big, probably world-destroying... again. Even more concerning, Ash was probably the only one who knew anything about it, He needed to make some calls.

Ash made his landing back at the professor's lab, Kukui had been kind to him while he had been travelling in Alola, admittedly there hadn't been much traveling to do in Alola the islands were basically just big circles to walk around, but being the site of his first league victory Ash had to admit, he grew fond of the region, but he had the feeling he'd be returning to Sinnoh soon. If Team Galactic were back that meant everyone was in danger, his friends, his mother and his Pokemon, and he might be the only one who knew anything about it.

"Ah Ash, welcome back!" Kukui greeted from the couch pen and paper in hand as Ash walked in. The professor seemed to be studying some moves from league matches.

"Alola, Professor," Ash replied, sitting down on the couch.

Kukui noticed the concerned look on Ash's face and put down his notepad, he could research latter. "What's up, Ash?" He asked the teen, who turned around in shock, having been surprised by the question.

"Uh, nothing, Professor!" he quickly lied, "Just figuring out where to go next..." Ash added, feeling guilty about the lies. "I uh… need to make a call..."

* * *

Far away on the porch of a sunny Villa Cynthia sat, relaxing. It was such a relief to be away from the stadium and all the media spotlight. She found it simply delightful just be able to sit back and relax on the deck of a villa, overlooking the quiet beach beside her property.

Suddenly the phone rang, piercing the sound of the waves crashing against the beach. With a sigh, Cynthia sighed as she reached over and picked up her mobile, Ash Ketchum? That was odd, they hadn't spoken in over a year, presumably, he had been too busy with his journey to contact her for a simple chat, then again she had heard he had just won a regional league. Perhaps he wants a battle?

"Hey, Ash." Cynthia casually greeted.

"Team Galactic is back." sounded out Ash's frantic voice.

Cynthia was instantly up, body filled with dread at the name. "W-what?"


	2. Back To Sinnoh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash returns to Sinnoh and meets a couple of old friends.

Above the calm waters of Shamouti island, a mighty flying type could be seen soaring past at incredible speeds. The Charizard let out a mighty roar as it flew past the familiar islands, his passenger looking down at them with mixed feelings about what had happened here so many years ago.

“Man, this is where it all started...” Pikachu turned and stared at Ash, having sat on Charizard’s neck.   
“Chu?”  
“I mean… This was the first time we saved the world, I didn’t really expect it to happen again… and again.” Ash sighed, pushing back some difficult memories. Empathising with his trainer’s feelings Pikachu approached him, nuzzling up against him. “Thanks, buddy. Wait, Charizard slow down, let’s land on Shamouti.“ Ash said, after having an idea.

Charizard landed at the shrine, “Wait here, I just want to check something.” Ash said to him, walking up to the pedestal. “Oh right, I forgot it was in this text.” Ash sighed, the full Prophecy being unreadable written in an ancient dialect he couldn’t speak.  
“Hello, Ash.” A calm and gentle voice spoke from behind the teen, who spun around to see the Slowking.   
“Oh, it’s you.” Ash said, a little surprised to see the Slowking again. “It’s nice to see you.”  
“You too Ash, Although I’m surprised what brings you back here?”  
“Well… Do you know what the Cinis Texts are?” he asked, on the whim that this Pokemon might know something about them.  
“Oh, the Cinis Texts are a series of prophecies from ancient times. Many of which have been fulfilled in the last few years, if rumor is to be believed. The legendary Pokemon talk of them quite frequently as of late.” The slowpoke explained calmly. Ash took a moment to digest this information.  
“And what does Cinis mean?” Ash asked, silently dreading the answer.  
“Well, it depends on context but the common meaning is soot or ash.” Of course, it was, Ash thought. He said his goodbyes to the Slowking and continued on his way towards Sinnoh.

* * *

Deep within the crystalline structures of the Hall of Origin, a group stood. An elderly scientist stood over a machine, tinkering away at it while grunts set up equipment.

“Explain this to me again, Charon?” The red-headed admin Mars asked, to the response of Charon’s sigh.  
“The dimensional barriers are weakest here, we are attempting to open a bridge to another world by bending space-time.” The doctor explained as if it were the simplest of concepts. Much to the Admin’s dismay, she turned around in frustration and walked over to a grunt, bossing him around.

Charon just shook his head and continued, turning the machine on and watching the model on the screen, as the space in front of them warped, falling inwards into a cone-like shape. Across dimensions, an arm of space reached out and inverted. An error alerted on the monitors as the distorted space began to pull everything inwards, Charon desperately adjusted his machine, but the display didn’t make any sense, the space just seemed to end without closing. Very suddenly the force stopped and a gateway opened up.

Mars watched with interest, as the gateway opened, she heard a woman scream   
“Cyrus, no!” and she watched as a thin man with light blue hair fell through the portal, which promptly collapsed, imploding and destroying the machines that had generated it.

* * *

It had been a couple of hours since Ash had left Shamouti Island, and he was anxious to land. Being the idiot he was Ash had forgotten to arrange any sleeping plans for tonight, which he greatly criticised himself for. 

He flipped out his PokéGear figuring he could see if dawn would let him stay with her for tonight when he noticed he’d had a message, from Serena. This was nothing out of the normal they had been keeping in semi-regular contact since they parted, something she had demanded he do. The message said that she had recently come to Sinnoh and would be competing in the contests for a while, Ash sent a quick reply, saying that he was on route to Sinnoh and suggesting that they should meet up. She was quick to reply, suggesting that they meet up in the Hearthome city Pokemon centre. 

As he replied a confirmation Pikachu got his attention, pointing to the horizon ahead of them, which now included the familiar mountains of Sinnoh. “Thanks, buddy.” Ash said, petting Pikachu’s back. “Hearthome City Charizard, Southeast of Coronet.”

* * *

In the clean and plain room of a Pokemon centre, Serena sat humming to herself as she messed with her hair.   
“What do you think Delphox?” she asked, comparing two outfits one being a black dress with a white belt. The other was her travelling outfit from Kalos, she figured that the black dress would be better as it showed change and a little bit more maturity. Delphox laughed, amused at the obvious crush her trainer had for Ash, how the dunce hadn't figured it out sooner it couldn’t be sure.   
Once ready, the two of them went down to the lobby, where they sat and waited for Ash. Delphox could sense her trainer’s anxiousness, it grabbed hold of its trainers hand, reassuring her with a smile.   
Which Serena greatly Appreciated. “Thanks, Delphox.” She whispered. Just then a mighty roar could be heard as a Charizard Landed and a boy Serena recognised slid off it’s back, with Pikachu on his Shoulder he walked in, Talking to his pokemon as if he could understand them perfectly.  
Serena stood up, walking towards Ash and waving to him which he missed, being too engrossed with his Pokemon to notice. Pikachu did though, he happily jumped off Ash and ran over to her, jumping into her arms. Which drew the attention of Ash who turned to look at her, he stood there for a moment, a slight blush on his cheeks before Serena took the initiative walking over to him.  
“Hi Ash, Its been a while.”   
Ash scratched the back of his head, “Yeah it has, How was Hoen?” he asked.  
“Oh, it was great! How was Alola?”  
“Excellent, the weather was wonderful and I won the league!” at this Serena tackled him in a hug.  
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner.” she asked, honestly a little disappointed that he hadn’t told her sooner.  
“Well, uh… I kinda had to rush over here. There’s a situation.” Serena looked up at him, curious.   
“Situation, it’s not team flare is it?” she asked, starting to get concerned.  
“No, no… worse actually.” Ash sighed, knowing it was probably too late not to get Serena involved now. “It’s a long story let’s find somewhere to sit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long one for me.  
So, I'm going to let you guess what was happening there with Team Galactic, it's probably more obvious than I imagine, depends how long ago you watched that episode.


	3. The experiment

Ash and Serena sat within the Pokemon centre cafeteria, the boy from Pallet had just explained who Team Galactic was. Serena gripped her coffee, taking comfort from its warmth this Team Galactic seemed deadly and now they were back, she rarely saw Ash looking so serious.

“So yeah, their leader is mental. I don’t think he has a limit… assuming he’s even back.” the Palletionian commented. 

“So what are you going to do, Ash?”

“I… don’t really know” Ash answered with his characteristic goofy grin, “I think I'll go visit Rowen, he’s my best bet at detecting where they are.”

“Well… You’re not doing this alone.” Serena’s face was filled with worry, it was all too easy for her to imagine Ash sacrificing his life to save the world, she’d make sure he wouldn’t. Ash laughed, easing her worry a bit.

“Somehow I knew you’d say that.” Ash smiled, feeling kind of glad he didn’t have to go it alone.

* * *

Colress sighed in frustration, sat on a hard chair he stared at his computer screen with a feeling of slight revulsion, the Kyrum experiments had been one thing but the scientists wondered if this was going too far. Still, he had a job to do and the results were sure to be delightfully interesting, so he booted up the system, dim lights flickering on illuminating the cold and dusty control room. A small screen at the front of the room rose up exposing the sterile lab room beyond the glass partition. Within the lab a group of gunts had been setting up the experiment, a previously extracted piece of stone from the Sinjoh ruins had been repurposed, set into the floor its surface was carved with geometric shapes and strange unknown symbols that no one truly understood. At the corners of a triangle three plate fragments had been placed, according to legends, these fragments had been part of the original one, all the doctor knew for sure is that they were filled with elemental Aura, which glowed with warm light.

“Bring in the Subjects,” Colress commanded. The grunts brought out four Pokemon, each one seemingly as scared as the last, careful movements and shocked yelps at the littlest movement. The Rockruff of the group was brought to the centre of the alchemical symbols, each of the Alolan starters was brought to their respective plate fragment, they were left there in cold chains as the grunts left the room.  
Colress mumbled to himself “Sealing the environment… charging the IE injectors...” equipment in the room sprung to life, large nozzles extended out from the roof pointing down towards the three starters with a faint hum as machines started turning from behind them.  
The man in charge of this operation, Cyrus stepped forward. “Begin the experiment Colress, We cannot operate indefinitely.”  
“Yes, Sir.” He responded, not wanting to upset the cold and calculating man. With a few button presses the experiment began, energy flowed out of the nozzles in the lab, engulfing the Pokemon and Plate fragments for a moment, the Plates seemed to regenerate themselves rebuilding into elongated hexagonal Plates which glowed warmer than before, the Pokemon glowed a beautiful white, their forms dissolving as though in evolution. Streams of elemental power streamed out of the Plates producing a deafening noise as they pushed the formless Pokemon together, the four lights classed together, emitting an incredible flash of light, for a moment the forms seemed to absorb the elemental energy steams and combine into one form, taking shape as a Quadrupedal creature, before dissolving just as quickly with an explosion everything in the room reverted to as it was, the Pokemon were thrown to the floor with force and cries of pain.  
Cyrus sighed but remained vigilant “Reconfigure to a 5-sided transmutation circle and add the Draco and Fist Plates as well as the Gible and Riolu ”

* * *

The Pokemon of the North Wind was growing concerned as it dashed across the surface of a cold yet calm ocean, this messenger of the Legendary Pokemon had a task to do as of late The legendaries had started noticing the signs, the end times were coming and the world was not ready. Suicune was meant to be taking Arceus’s chosen one to Sinnoh by now but he hadn't been in Kanto or Alola. 

Quite suddenly the water next to Suicune rose into the air, a large white bird Pokemon rose up into the air. “To what do I owe this visit, Suicune?” asked the Lugia.

“The Chosen one is missing, guardian of the sea.”

“You just missed him, he passed by a few hours ago. I can take you to him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just what are they up to?
> 
> Sorry for the shorter chapter today, wanted this finished before the site goes down, Enjoy.


End file.
